Baptism
by Taranova
Summary: Edward's premature death at the hands of the Drachman army leaves Roy with a sense of deep loss. Vague details allow no closure. Character death, implied rape. No slash.
1. Baptism

The stench of anguish filled his nostrils, mud and slime churning with black portions of rotting blood and human waste. The twelve-year-old thrashed against the heavy weight holding him down; one, two, three men dripping with muck, the living dead, callously laughing and murmuring as the boy's face sank more deeply in the mud.

Edward screamed, tasting the wet grit and shit between his teeth—missed his toothbrush, blue and clean, at the place he'd come to think of as his home. Cold bubbles of his own air boiled around him, popping almost silently against the sound of blood spray, bullet spray, storm spray. His half-submerged ears picked up the sound of his limbs squirming and struggling through the stiff muck, though his uniform (also blue, but not at all comforting) clung to his torn flesh and dragged him deeper down.

The letter had come in a sealed white envelope, the president's stamp a thick glob of crimson on parchment. Minuscule noises passed away into silence: all eyes rested on the words, disbelievingly, but without protest. Finally Mustang had cleared his throat, mind drifting in that numb wasteland of detached emotion, and informed Edward of his fate in soldier's terms. "In six weeks, you're expected in Drachma. Do you understand what that means?"

He hadn't wanted to go to war. He had always been aware of the _possibility_, because the colonel had frequently warned him of his duty as a dog of the military. It had only seemed like an empty threat at the time; a way to keep his collar tight and the man's pocket full. He had never expected to be carted off to the front lines like disposable livestock, an airless train compartment and dry rations, the cold mountains looming in the distance.

He had phased through several reactions at once. He remembered standing in front of Mustang's desk, trembling while attempting to appear stiff and careless, afraid to speak. He remembered screaming, crying, yelling when no one denied the declaration. I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go. The colonel abandoning him on the floor for hard liquor ("I can't look at him anymore"). Everyone looked away, already resigned to the idea of his death.

He lasted five minutes on the battlefield, because the troops were unprepared and he was frightened. He kept looking for Alphonse, his constant partner in the heat of a confrontation, but bitterly remembered that the eleven-year-old was safe with the Hughes family in Central. It comforted him to know that Alphonse needn't see.

Needn't see the dark plume of fire and smoke as a bomb exploded in the distance, incinerating living men. Their bodies crusted and burned black, red slime melting against skinless ribcage and busted torso, skull, fragments of bone crunching, the waste of a corpse finally falling down in the mud where the blood could trickle and congeal in the mud. Shrapnel pelting flesh, chunks of metal ripping muscle, tearing sinew, busting bone.

The environment was a deadly rainbow. Red blood, orange cacophony and a blistering sunset poisoned by debris, yellow pus from dripping infections and smashed eyeballs and trailing innards, the green metallic wings of the flies that devoured rot, blue flares of nightmare or a streak of bullet, purple bruise and decaying blood. It always went back to _blood. _

They'd given him a gun. Large, half as big as he was. They never told him how to use it, which was fine, because he didn't want to. If he could survive without taking a life, he'd damn well do it. He had hid behind a mess of fresh corpses, shaking and clutching his pocket-watch tight, whispering to his mother as hot tears ran down his chin onto a soldier's busted skull. If he ever saw Mustang again, he would have fervently denied that he'd fucking cried.

Maybe he went deaf somewhere along the way, or maybe the battle really did start to wane; in any case, he didn't hear the heavy footsteps of Drachman soldiers behind him, and didn't struggle much when they grabbed him, throwing him down in the mud. Stupid thing, he realized too late; stupid thing to think that anyone would pity him in hell.

"Look at this little fucking shit," one of the men said as Ed was pulled, spluttering and soaked, out of the slime. He blinked away painful, dripping grime, choking on the oxygen, gag reflexes trembling. The same man returned to his native tongue, a rough language that sounded rougher to Ed's ears.

Ed said nothing, closing his eyes, feeling sick and dirty and helpless because he didn't understand; he was coated in liquid shit and it was making the heat unbearable. Flies bit into his flesh as they gorged on sweat and blood and mud. He tried to sink forward, collapse, end it, but the men kept a strong hold on his arms. The flesh one might have been broken, and the automail definitely was.

Metal against his head. It smelled like gunpowder.

"Shoot the brat," someone said, "then we can fuck it."

It. They didn't know or didn't care that he had an identity, a name, a gender. This was war, and war was a spectacle; horrifying, and when the flames died down, the survivors sifted through the ashes to burn remnants for their own pleasure. It made no sense and all the sense in the world.

He was going to die, alone, in the heat, in the mud, trembling and at the mercy of his adversaries. There wouldn't even be a body, he realized apathetically; the thought that Alphonse would have to grieve in front of an empty casket made his head swim. No one would have any proof, any closure. His heart ached.

The Fullmetal let out a sob, blind against the material world, but internally drowning in a waterfall of memory. Alphonse—he'd never see Alphonse's body, feel his skin, unbroken—never squabble with Mustang ("If I could go with you to protect you, I would." "Why _won't _you?" "My work is _here_."), never again see Winry's eyes sparkle blue.

"Aww, precious thing's crying," a husky voice whispered in his ear. "Do it while it's still warm."

Edward expected a loud noise, bloody copper in his nose, but he was pushed back under, back into cold oblivion. He thrashed, but the weight returned, all over him, all around him. He opened his eyes, saw black, moist earth. His eyes burned as the grime tasted the white and gold iris, innocence slipping away, slipping away as he slipped away beneath the thick pool. He tried to scream. Bitter slime in his mouth.

_So I bleed_

Rumblings echoed in his ear. He imagined they were ghosts coming to claim him.

_And I breathe_

Getting so hard to think straight. He sobbed, coughing, the thick brown mucus in his throat and on his teeth. He felt it dripping in his lungs, coating them, dark laughter from above. Killing him slowly. So precious. To destroy. Couldn't wait for him to stop moving, turn to stone.

_I breathe now..._

He smelled apple pie. _  
_

_And I breathe_

He reached out with his flesh hand, though he couldn't see it. Reached for the scent, screaming for the stench of death to leave so the cinnamon scent of baked apple could overwhelm him. He missed it. So. Damn. Much. _  
_

_I breathe_

I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go._  
_

_I breathe_

Tears, and then the vague, vague thought that he couldn't think anymore. He felt warm; sleepy; comfortable; soundless; dreamless. He was made of silk. _  
_

_No more. _


	2. Sacrament

Sometimes he imagined he was lying down in a field of weeds. They weren't uncomfortable; didn't stick him in the back, were a soft green in color that danced in a bleached-out haze of sun. He just laid there, listening to the sounds of his own determined breath, air (life) in his lungs as he tried to sink into the soil, become one with the living things surrounding him. It couldn't happen. Once he touched them, they turned brittle, like straw.

He smelled dirty rubber, burnt hair, a whiff of blood on the air. If he trusted himself he could find his way back to the bed of weeds, but he didn't trust himself. He trusted his body, not his mind. Snapped his fingers and walked through the flames, charcoal diffusing the deadly scent of scarlet boil. You think you know how the game is played, but you're called from the bench and suddenly realize you wish you'd never dreamed of heroes.

Children were such fools.

He opened his eyes, cheek pressed against dark polished wood. Amber flames danced on the desk, skewered by slivers of sunlight that crowded between the cracks in drawn velvet curtains. The place was empty and mostly dark, if not for the scent of burning wood and the embers that accompanied it.

He didn't ever want to leave this place. Paper, cologne, scraping chairs, boredom, polished shoes, a cigarette, a sip of brandy, a photograph or two, simmering in the heat without the comfort of air conditioning (those cheap bastards). This was who he was: a soldier behind a desk, fearing the moment, whenever and if ever, he would be called back to the rain of ashes and brown flaking corpses. He had discovered a way to branch out: make it to the top through politics, not victories.

If one could call them 'victories.'

He sighed, feeling out of touch with the paperwork on his desk. His private office was small. Although he could have joined the others in the adjoining room, he had been keeping to himself lately; he felt chilled, and spent long hours staring into his fire grate, trying to make sense of the pattern of orange flame. It was telling him a story only he could decipher.

Sometimes he tried to control it. Bend it to his will from the plush seat he frequently occupied. Created shapes, concentrated the energy, watched mesmerized as it changed colors. Blue to red to orange to pink and back again, until the base of the flame shined a brilliant platinum, and the crest glared a vibrant gold. Then he let go of the reins, closing his eyes, letting darkness overcome him again; dark shadows on the carpet.

He pressed his face into his hands, fingers at the temple. There were many things he was not proud of. Genocide, for one. Alcoholism, for another. Coercing a child into joining the military shouldn't have shocked his conscience. When the letter-if a death notice could be a pleasantry-arrived, he had first considered burning it, pretending it was lost. Sending Edward out of the country, safe from things he couldn't possibly understand yet.

The key word was 'yet.' He had hoped that the boy would have some proper training before he was cast into the fray of bullets; had always been under the impression that the Fuhrer would refrain from putting him out in the field until he was at least eighteen. Legal but still tender. He was a fool to have believed such a thing. Edward was a weapon, nothing more. If the Drachman border wars were threatening Amestris so very badly, Fullmetal was meant for one purpose: to distract the opponent.

It had to be the truth. Even the brass knew the boy hadn't received the proper instruction or discipline to meet the requirements of wartime. They expected him to die-hoped for it, so that they might have an excuse to properly execute an actual invasion. They wanted a corpse; at this point, six months since the boy had been officially declared missing in action, Roy doubted they would find one. But that was enough.

Already the Fuhrer had announced an ambitious plan to take back the borders, perhaps carve territory out of Drachma itself. Exact revenge for an innocent twelve-year-old child murdered by the heathens-never mind that it was Amestrians who put him in combat.

Yes, Roy had considered many things before finally handing the envelope to the little blond with muddy boots and eyes too alive to see lifelessness. Ed had read it slowly. Tasted the words on his lips as if to make sure he comprehended them. Looked up with this godawful look, as if he had been betrayed or hurt and couldn't speak for it. And then Edward asked him why-why he was being sent away to a battlefield when the colonel had specifically promised him that wouldn't happen.

_"I never said it wouldn't happen. I only said that it will be some time before you're expected to fulfill your duties. The State does not exist to suit your purposes, Fullmetal. It's equivalent exchange, is it not?" _

He hated those words. Careless, thrown about, meaningless and above all lies. His present self looked toward the dark wooden chair in front of his desk. It remained silent, occupied by shapes and memories his eyes could no longer detect. He winced as his fingers went limp, dropping the ball-point pen on the floor with a sharp clatter. The fire hushed and moved gracelessly, disturbed by the movement, and then went back to burning.

They never did find out what happened to the boy, out there; that's not to say there weren't hypotheses. Men cluttered the hallways, the mess hall, whispering loudly, coarse words without emotion. Perhaps Fullmetal had turned traitor to the state. Been captured by the enemy (a fate Roy wouldn't wish on anyone), or been shot and dragged to the beasts that occupied the swamps surrounding.

Then, too, Roy's own team had contributed their own theories, in private, when they thought the colonel wasn't listening.

"Bet he drowned in a bog," Lieutenant Havoc had said morosely, flicking his prized lighter on and off, on and off. "I mean, I don't wanna think that, and you probably shouldn't tell the colonel, but it'd explain why no one's found a body. Metal limbs can weight a body down." He then had shut the lighter with a snap, closing his eyes, filtering his thoughts so that he could one day forget all about Elric for good.

That would never happen. Regardless of military discipline, Ed wasn't someone you could just _forget _about. Sure, it might numb the heart for a while, as Roy had a lot of experience with, but in the end you'd sit in bed with a bottle of whiskey and a pack of smokes and you'd look at the sky and the moonlight would become a putrid white glow on your skin and your flesh would turn to stone and the whiskey would turn to blood and you'd have no choice but to recollect why you're killing yourself in the first place.

A hollow rap on the door pulled him from the hum of melancholic thoughts. He sat up, straightening his uniform where he'd slept and wrinkled it. Dark hair, glasses, blue uniform. He went back to his regular sorry state of posterity, frowning at his desk.

"Brought you lunch," Hughes said, spectacle lenses a glaring red in the light of flames. There was something ominous about the way firelight could do that to glass. The man held up a small white box, smiling a bit. "Actually, it's more like dessert, but from the looks of you a little sugar wouldn't kill you."

Roy watched him take a seat in the wooden chair opposite the desk. At first, irritation brimmed like broiling water in his stomach; Edward had an appointment at three and it was two-fifty-five. It was the boy's chair to fill. His place to converse and scream and yell and taunt and smile like the brat he was. Insolent _shit_.

But he said nothing, other than, "Thanks. I suppose I should send my regards to your wife?"

Maes handed him the package, and the dark-haired colonel took it appreciatively, the smell of cold apple pie heaven for the feverish sludge of blood-tide that constantly swept his mind. He slid his pinkie underneath the package's flaps, and picked up the small metal fork tucked alongside the pie.

For a moment he could only look at it like it had started quoting Socrates.

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad," Maes said at once, reading his expression carefully. He took off his glasses, as he always did when feeling perceptive or empathetic, and allowed a wan smile to cross his lips as he stared at a scuff on the front of the desk. "You're looking paler than usual. Your first lieutenant specifically asked me to come in here and cheer you up under threat of a bullet in my ass, so whatever you want to say, you can say."

Roy looked up at him, slightly annoyed at the prospect of being probed like a psychiatric patient, and then back down at the pie. He sighed, and then cut a small piece with the fork, putting it in his mouth if only to satisfy the man. It was good. Despite the temperature, the flavor of spice warmed him. Still. It couldn't wash away the _tasteless _feeling behind his lips. "She doesn't disappoint," he commented around the mouthful.

"Of course she doesn't," Maes snickered. "This is my wife we're talking about here."

Roy took another bite, apathetic about whether or not he was neat about it. Flaky crumbs sprinkled his blue military jacket. "She's something else." Sometimes, when he was alone in here, he almost envied his comrade. He had someone to love and love him back. Someone to protect; he'd take a bullet for Gracia and he'd kill for his daughter. Roy had promised himself he wouldn't burden other lives with his existence.

"Once again, my advice persists."

"I don't have any plans to bring an innocent woman into my lifestyle. I know Gracia is more than willing to follow you no matter what it might cost her, but women of my type typically don't want to mess with the dangers of politics." He stared again into the fire grate; it was true. The women he allowed himself to have relations with were of little intelligence. Dark-haired, voluptuous, sometimes foreign. There was no risk that he'd fall in love; no risk that he'd miss them if he ever lost them.

"I'm sure that if you really looked hard enough, you'd find somebody," Hughes argued plainly. He inclined his head toward the door, illustrating a path with his eyes. "They could be right under your nose, and you'll never realize it because you're constantly tormenting yourself. Don't you want something other than brainless sex every weekend?"

"Relationships have consequences. Military protocol dictates this. If I ever initiated in anything with Riza, it would never be the same. We're too alike and altogether different. If she wanted something more, I wouldn't refuse her, but I would not selfishly break the careful ties we've established." He looked down for a moment, cutting another piece of pie and hesitating before putting it in his mouth. "And with marriage comes children."

He stopped chewing, thoughts lingering on that word for a long while. He counted his heartbeats, one after the other, thinking of that goddamn word and all of its implications. The apple pie turned to sticky, cinnamon flavored glue in his mouth. He swallowed something salty, eyes misting over though he hadn't a fathomable idea why.

"Breathe, Roy," Maes said in a calm tone.

"I am. I just bit off more than I could chew," Roy lied. The fire grate cackled and fizzed. The flames encountered a bit of water within a log, and the water popped into gas form. "But my point stands. Children are vulnerable. And my track record isn't so good." He paused, swallowing again, swathing his mouth with his tongue to get rid of the taste of sweet apple stickiness. "Have you ever had a pet?"

Maes frowned, folding one leg across the other in a casual, but defensive, position. "When I was younger."

"Children are like pets. Goldfish, to be specific. If you neglect them, they die."

"If you neglect anything it dies, grown men included," Maes said shortly. He pushed his glasses back on his nose, until he could press them up the bridge no longer. "I know what you're trying to say. But you don't have to say it. Don't force yourself to do something if it causes you pain; I'll listen, but you need to be ready to speak."

The colonel scraped the flaking crust remains of the pie, until they powdered the white box like a backwards snow drift: light brown on white. The two men drank silence together, listening to the whisper of flames as they embraced each piece of wood in the grate, romantic, platonic thoughts flowering and dying in the brain like lilies in the desert.

He felt that odd, detached feeling again; like he was drifting away, slowly away, from a place he didn't recognize to a place he would never reach. He turned around in his plush chair, much too nice for his rank, and fingered open the blinds so that he could see the court yard in its bleached white militarism. Toy soldiers saluted their commanders against a backdrop of decorative honeydew and rose.

They were going to the border in three days. Some, going to their deaths. All because he went to Resembool. All because he symbolically led a child down a ruinous path full of contagion, debris, maladies even he could not understand. (Grown-ups are such fools.) Shou Tucker would not have felt pressured to commit a heinous crime against his daughter; the people would have no hero to divide them. Edward would not be gone, Alphonse would not be miserable and alone in Resembool, Amestris would be spared a 'revolution.'

"There's a reason you came here today," Roy said quietly, closing his eyes. He could see his reflection in the windowpane, and it disturbed him greatly. "What is it, and why aren't you telling me?"

Maes cleared his throat. "Just wanting to keep you alive." His voice was hoarse, raw; emotional, and Roy knew that the simpler facade of business they had thus far acted out was nothing more than a distraction. A way to keep the peace. Hughes was battling with himself, and simultaneously trying to keep the fragile binding of Roy's spirit attached to the leaves of his consciousness.

"No, it's not," Roy demanded more insistently. "What is it you've come here for?" Knew, wouldn't say. Knew, wouldn't say. Knew love, loss, life. The lieutenant, Fullmetal, an apple too sweet and too evil. The serpent only wanted to free the mind from chains of ignorance.

Maes fixed him with a long, hard look. Took off his glasses again. Wiped them dry of nonexistent dust. Breathed. "Edward's remains were found yesterday." Roy saw mist overtake the man's green eyes, like ashen smoke in the hills, though perhaps it was only imagination. Both settled further back in their seats, not daring to draw air; cold, clenching gloves tore at his chest, stomach shifting up until he felt it might escape his mouth.

"Nomads found his skeleton in a trench about three kilometers south of the mountain range. It's normally damn wet out there, and the authorities think he drowned. It's the dry season, so the wind..." Hughes stopped himself, looking ill; quiet, somber melodies started up in his head, memories of lullaby he would sing to Elysia. "They identified him by the automail. It was warped, so they couldn't tell for sure, and...he drowned."

"In mud."

Hughes covered his mouth with his fist, elbow on the little wooden chair's arm rest. He forced himself to look away. "Yes." In darkness.

Roy leaned across his desk, placing his head in his hands. His flesh turned scarlet; he felt a pressure build inside of him, intense and warm and enduring. He wouldn't let it out. Never. He could not afford to love, or lose, or live again. A man was not a child and a child was not a man.

He was in a field of weeds, absent of color. The sky: steel-gray. The sun: platinum, with a fringe of invisible gold. He let go of the reins; could not control the fire, let it burn him slowly, joined himself. He was alone. Tears, and then the vague, vague thought that he couldn't hold it in anymore. He felt cold; awake; uncomfortable; deafened; nightmares. He was made of soil. _  
_


	3. Afterlife

**Note: The poem at the end wasn't written by me. It's called "In Remembrance" and I'm not sure about the author, but Orange Singer was kind enough to send me a link to a choral representation. You can find it on my profile. :)  
**

* * *

Edward woke up in a field. Confusion fluttered in his dark lashes for what could have been minutes, if time existed. Hot air had dissipated, along with the foul smells of his own blood congealing around him, the taste of mud and of those soldiers in his mouth. Pain was a memory. No more hands pulling at his hair, no more sticky waste clogging his lungs or throat, no more screaming. No more wondering where the physical realm ended and the next began.

He sat bolt upright, breathing hard, listening to the quick work of air throughout his body: he had a body. Surely the body could not follow one into death, if indeed he was dead. He looked about his surroundings, holding himself to protect against what seemed to be a chilly wind whipping about him. No longer did he wear a uniform; black leather, and the familiar wool of his old red jacket. It smelled like oil and tea.

The landscape was difficult to describe. Fields upon fields, bright green threads of grass that fluttered into deep shades of blue, mist cloaking the further hills and eclipsing the small white sheep that dotted them. The air had a pure, cold quality to it, and to Ed, it seemed almost colorful. It was odd to think that air could have a color; perhaps he was just going insane.

He stood up, untied hair sweeping about his head so that he had to keep brushing it out of his eyes in order to see properly. He almost recognized the place, but for its emptiness; it reminded him of Resembool. The sound of cattle calls on the breeze, carrying over great distances. The smell of wild grasses and flowers, hemming a dirt path. The only difference was the lack of civility. No trains passing, no whistles to indicate their imminence. No houses.

Just a house.

He saw its smoke rising from a small chimney-stack. If there was any purpose for him, in any kind of life, he decided that might be it.

* * *

The parlor was alight with dim solemnity. The smell of traditional foods wafted throughout the place, somehow relieving the taint of preservation fluids and the heavy perfumes of the church service they had just attended. They ate out of respect for Mrs. Hughes' cooking, but she would have understood anyway. Roy's focus was on the irony of having a religious service for a child that had never believed in a god in the first place, but he didn't say it.

Gracia was religious, and he didn't want to imply that Ed might be doomed for his atheistic tendencies.

The Hughes's had offered up their home for the funeral reception; afterward, the Rockbells would be allowed to bury Ed in their home town. Alphonse would move back in with them, take up work as an auto-mechanic's assistant. Perhaps in time he would be allowed to attend a school in agriculture. After all, there was little to be done about finding his body when half of his mind had died during the war. He seemed keen on the idea. Spoke fondly of using alchemy to help produce what he called "hybrid" crops.

Roy shoved some cheese potatoes to the side of his plate; it was their best china, he noted. They had only ever used it for family birthdays or the winter solstice. The men at the long dining room table (his subordinates, mostly, though Armstrong had briefly dropped by earlier in the afternoon) discussed politics, their holiday plans, Central's idea to create a sponsored baseball team. The conversation always went back to Edward, inadvertently.

Politics involved "the war", and the war invariably was held responsible for the child's death; holidays reminded them all of the little things they'd planned to do to make him feel included; baseball was a sport Ed was secretly fond of, according to Jean Havoc.

"Little shit used to collect cards, apparently. All Xingese teams I've never heard of."

Alphonse and Winry were in the living room, cooing over Elysia, and Roy could hear them through the thin walls of the townhouse. Whenever Alphonse took a step, his heavy metal body shook the floor ever so slightly and made the dining cabinet tremble. He liked listening to that over the sound of his colleagues. He hadn't said a word yet and didn't plan to.

Ever since he had first found out about Fullmetal's...passing, he'd been strangely out-of-sorts. He couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Couldn't shower. And it was all for stupid, stupid reasons. Sleeping brought nightmares of setting kids on fire in Ishbal, watching their stuffed animals burn faster than they did. Anything he put in his mouth tasted like something it shouldn't. Meat was human flesh and blood, bread was sand. Only liquor kept him alive. Couldn't shower, because he had this little _paranoid _thought that mud might come out his shower head.

He threw his fork down with a clatter on the plate, rubbing his forehead. The noise startled the others.

"Roy, you okay?" Maes asked, fingers pressed together like a temple.

He nodded, staring at the crystal vase on the windowsill, the way the sunlight refracted rainbows in the glass. And with that painfully bright light being the last straw, he scraped his chair back and stood. "I need to step outside for a moment. Clear my head."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No."

* * *

Edward hadn't seen this place in a year or two, not since he'd burnt it down. The table was sturdy and four chairs surrounded it. Pale light through the curtains. He smelled the traces of cooking, of sweet maple and fresh orange. A small clock above the stove that read 2:23.

His house was empty. He touched everything to make sure it was solid. Make sure it was real; make sure he was real, because at that point, he wasn't certain. Maybe he was in a coma, and had survived drowning after all. Yes, he was safe in Central, and his brain was oxygen-deprived, and he was hooked up to machines, and any moment now he would wake up to see his brother and the colonel.

And the colonel would smile and say, "Hey, kid. Did you enjoy your _short _nap?" and Edward would laugh, glad to be alive, and then they'd all just go back to the way it was before. Paperwork and mining towns and the philosopher's stone.

He started to cry. He sunk to his knees, big, fat tears rolling down his face and onto the wooden floor. He clutched himself and sobbed, not really caring about anything; he just didn't know what to feel. He was dead. He knew he was dead; knew that an unspeakable, awful evil had been done to him, and now he was dead, and there would _be _no going back to whatever sad excuse for a life he'd been living.

The colonel and Alphonse and the lieutenants and Maes Hughes and Elysia and Gracia and Pinako and Winry (_Winry_) were all alive and probably grieving because they didn't know what had happened to him, didn't know about the trench or the mud or the groans in his ear or the way every last breath had been a sob, a plea. They would live their lives knowing that they'd never see him again, but they would have nothing to confirm it. No corpse. No perpetrators.

War had no perpetrators; only tools.

"What's this, now?" a gentle voice said, a hush in his ears that reminded him of dead leaves stirring in autumn. "What could be so bad?"

Ed looked up at a face, one so familiar (it haunted his dreams, every damn night) but so fresh, as if he was seeing it for the very first time. He was becoming an infant again. Another tear caught in his lashes.

* * *

Roy took a long walk. He went along every cobblestone street, turned every corner, and with every house he passed he couldn't help but note how fundamentally similar they all were. Two-story townhouses, pastel colored shutters, brick baked warm in the afternoon sunshine. He could smell bread and meat.

He considered stopping at the drug store to buy cigarettes; it would choke out those unfathomable domestic scents. He couldn't contemplate that sort of lifestyle. Wondered, briefly, what it would be like to come home to a wife or children. But he didn't dwell on it for long. These people were all his children. He would become Fuhrer, the father of Amestris, and he would bring about an era of peace and prosperity.

He hadn't the time or the heart to afford something so intimate.

Again, his thoughts glazed over Riza Hawkeye, and he stopped walking, his hair tousled by the cool spring breeze. Two children ran past him, and still he stayed silent, thinking about the woman and all of those qualities he admired, none of them quite eclipsing the other. For she was beautiful, yes, but she was also someone who understood him too closely to be described in words. It was an unspoken thing.

And he wouldn't...ruin that symbiosis because of a whim, because of something so human and so devastating as sex or matrimony. Getting emotionally close to something or someone was a dire objective. In the end, as he was experiencing now, the closeness was forfeit because of domestic dispute or affliction or damn it all, death.

But that was the thing.

He had tried very hard not to get close to the Elric brothers. But like an infection or worse, they had crawled under his skin. Irritated him. Messed with his head. They'd made him fall in love with them. He could come up with a dozen logical reasons as to why they might have accomplished that, but none of them made any more sense than the other, and while his war guilt over burning infants to death or his admiration of their skills might have been part of it, he felt the reasons were deeper.

More internal. More psychological. There were immaterial things about Edward and Alphonse that made him not just admire them, but want to see them develop, grow. He wanted them to escape the bed of weeds they'd made for themselves; he wanted to see them blossom, wanted Alphonse to have a body he could hold, wanted to shake hands with the elder brother (the _right _hand, mind you).

Roy found himself heading towards the bank of the river, its cold freshwater tide licking the sand clods. He hoisted himself over the marble railing of the barrier that separated the thin shore and the street, and when he landed his boots sunk about an inch into moist brown sand. Water came in, lapped his boots, and then went out again, leaving his toes feeling chilly and damp in the confines of the shoes.

It was surreal here, in the shadows, watching the river as it made its course. On the other end of it, there was another street, and another long stretch of townhouses. He could have been looking in a mirror, for all he could tell, and he half expected to see himself on the opposite shore, shivering and appearing for all the world like a complete imbecile.

"Maybe this is what death is like," he said aloud, imagining Edward was beside him, and wondering if it was the truth or not. He didn't believe in ghosts, most of the time. "Like getting lost in a busy street, not being able to find your way back home. It gets cold, and you find a stranger, and they take you back to your loved ones and you feel. You feel _safe." _

He laughed at himself darkly, and then bent down, scooping a rock out from a clump of sand. He brushed the excess sand off, and then threw it, watching it twist through the air before landing with a splash in the river current. Any ripples were drowned by the rush of water. That disappointed him.

He'd always like watching the circular ripples extend, extend, like the hum of a transmutation, or a metaphor for the impact of a single soul on populations of others.

He waded out into the water, the shallow cold rushing past him, making his legs weak and numb. But he kept going. He wanted that stone back. He was going to get it. So he kept on, and on, and soon he was waist deep, and he was digging around in the soil of the riverbed, the tangle of weeds and small pebbles, searching for that smooth stone. So beautiful and so unique and above all _his. _

And then he found it. Clasped it, smiled. Held it up to the orange evening sun. But in an instant, the smile vanished, and something caught his feet, and he was pulled under, and he could see the surface, the clouds in the sky, but he was trapped, couldn't reach for them, got too close to the sun and _drowned. _

He thrashed, the pain greater than he could understand. Whenever he had imagined drowning, he had thought that it would be an easy, quick death, much like falling asleep. But he was wrong. This was horror. Seeing his oxygen boil around him, wanting to grasp those air bubbles and suck it back in. The bleeding, screaming feeling in his lungs, as if they were imploding in on themselves, much the same as it had been in Ishbal when he had underestimated the volume of smoke in the vicinity.

So this was what Edward felt like as he was dying, Roy thought to himself, a warm, sleepy feeling in his muscles that burned when he moved. He still clasped the stone in his hand; he probably could have helped untangle the weeds if he let it go, but he was _not letting it go. _

He sunk further down until his back hit the soil. He remembered the abundance of flowers on the twelve year old's grave; every color and shape, some from strangers, some from enemies. Remembered offering a stiff salute to Basque Grand, not forgiving the man for what he was, but appreciating the gesture of attendance; remembered squeezing Riza Hawkeye's shoulder as she tried to hold back the tight clutch of tears.

Remembered wanting to hold her, but unable to, because of his goddamn pride, his goddamn fear of letting people too close to him, because it ended up like _this, _with him drowning and there being no one, no tether, nothing but his weakness and the emptiness that death left him with-

There. A human-shaped shadow above him, looking down at him. Was this Death? Was this the ghoul coming to claim him? He pondered that, closing his eyes to resign himself, when he felt his collar grabbed, and he was pulled up by what seemed to be abundant strength, and suddenly he was choking on the sweet euphoria of air, of oxygen, of life.

_No! _

Maes Hughes was yelling in his face. "What the fuck were you thinking, doing that?"

He was pulled, sopping wet clothes and all, to the shore, where a gaggle of other friends and acquaintances waited. They were all damp, all ankle-deep in river tide. Maes laid him down on the sandy beach, and Roy coughed for a minute or two, aware of eyes and sunshine beating down on him. Both of his hands were empty, and he felt his eyes start to feel heavy; they hurt.

The stone was gone.

"You could have died, do you understand that?" Maes took hold of him by his collar, anger and guilt and grief and all kinds of fearful emotions purpling his face. "Do you really think any of us want to lose you too?"

"I wasn't trying to kill myself, Maes," Roy managed to say, choking back the clog of tears. "I was looking for something, and I found it, but it slipped out of my hands as soon as I could breathe again." He looked at the cloud of faces above him, and Riza Hawkeye's beautiful gray eyes stood out the most, reflecting the evening sun in hues of pink and orange. She looked too pale, too shaken, and Roy realized that she had been crying.

Guilt, again.

Maes was looking at him sadly, as if he had seen everything, and was only just beginning to piece it together. "You know what?" he said gently. "Let's go home."

* * *

His mother sat in her old rocking chair. The one that creaked with every rock, a sound that made him feel safe, because it was so ordinary and so rhythmic and so completely her. She rocked like that, back and forth, as he sat on the ground with his head against her knee. He watched her; she was sewing something, a bird or a flower; the needle glimmered in warm firelight.

No more blood. No more hate. No more suffering.

"Mom," Ed said quietly, watching the flames dance in the grate, the only light in the small darkened room. Night had descended, and small twinkling stars blanketed the sky outside. They had tried counting them earlier, but there were far too many. "Are we dead?"

She sighed, and with that a waft of her scent filled the room; honeysuckle and sweet rain. "Not really, darling. Just in a different place."

"But it's like I never left," he whispered back, clutching her skirt in his completely flesh-and-bone right hand. Looking at it made him think, made guilt eat away at his stomach, and he cringed, remembering that hellish night all that time ago, even if it seemed it had never happened in the first place. He needed to know.

His words were like the wind: cool, quiet, and desperate. "Do you forgive me for what I did to you?" The transmutation, the blood on the floor, the meaty carcass, Alphonse's screams echoing in his head. His bloody stumps dragging along the floor in great trails of scarlet.

Her green eyes dimmed, and her expression turned sad. She shook her head, laying down her needlework. "Oh, child," she said, running her fingers through his hair, the separate strands clinging to each other as another log popped in the grate in a shower of bright sparks. "Sweetheart, there's nothing to forgive."

* * *

_Do not stand at my grave and weep,  
I am not there. I do not sleep.  
I am a thousand winds that blow,  
I am the snow on the mountain's rim,  
I am the laughter in children's eyes,  
I am the sand at the water's edge,  
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,  
I am the gentle Autumn rain,  
When you awaken in the morning's hush,  
I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight,  
I am the star that shines at night,  
Do not stand at my grave and cry,  
I am not there, I did not die._


End file.
